On the rampaging Fulani herdsmen and developments in Oyo State…
“Why won’t you people just defend yourselves?”
This was also the question people always asked me when I talked about what Plateau State people have been going through in the hands of Fulani herdsmen.
Sometimes, I felt there was an unspoken insinuation.
Perhaps, we the indigenes of Plateau State were not smart enough to protect ourselves or our land. How did we just fold our hands and also let people storm in and terrorize us over and over again?
If you have followed my column here over the last five years; you will know that I have spoken about the evil that had been left unchecked, stalking through Plateau State.
Thousands of people have been killed.
Untold number of farmlands destroyed.
Villages left empty.
But most people outside the North could not just relate.
I will never forget how hurt I was when people singled out Berom people of Plateau State; blaming them for the death that was stalking their lands.
“Berom people are wicked” was the rhetoric.
Berom people were intolerant.
This misinformation caught like wildfire.
It was so ironic to the average Plateau person. The number one characteristic of Berom men is that they are laid back. Unmotivated. Unambitious. They like their lives simple. Hustling was not to build skyscrapers in their villages. Hustling was mostly for subsistence.
But after burying their men, women and children, you can imagine how they stopped being easy-going. Grief and injustice was whittling Berom people into a tougher ethnicity.
Fast forward to almost a decade of battling insecurity. Nigerians are knowing the truth simply by experiencing it.
The Beroms are not wicked.
The Tivs and Idomas are not terrorists.
Neither are the Kataf people cattle rustlers.
The Adamawa people do not have a vendetta against Fulani people.
The Taraba people did not go looking for trouble.
Nigerians are learning from experience.
What is sweeping through the South West is an old story for we that lived in the Middle Belt. It is so old that we can help you write the next chapter.
The MO hasn’t changed.
It is the same people.
Doing what they did in Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa etc. etc.
There is one common denominating factor. One recurring constant.
Fulani Herdsmen.
The naivety of the past that some groups of persons would be shielded from this menace is wearing thin. No one is insulated. No one is safe.
What is worse is that they now know that rearing cattle is hard. Kidnapping people has a faster turnover. Indeed, so much could come in, depending on if they are able to have important people in their mesh.
I see Lagosians feeling detached.
Don’t worry.
This is turn by turn.
Will the government step in and arrest those that have harassed them by raping, killing, kidnapping as well as destruction of farmlands?
Or will victims be compensated?
If you have fallen victim to the activities of these terrorists and you have escaped with your life; that is your God-given compensation.
No one will pay for the crime committed.
No one will be jailed for lives lost.
You are invincible to your government.
How do I know this? Because the same thing has replicated itself from state to state.
Now, Oyo indigenes under the leadership of Sunday Igboho are daring to send the marauders away. Suddenly, the IGP of police has ordered his arrest.
All crimes are crimes but a crime against the elite Fulani herdsmen is met with zero tolerance.
Their right to reside anywhere in Nigeria will always be protected. This right supersedes your right of being. This overrides your right to conduct your legitimate business on your own property.
The Fulani own the Nigerian soil and its fullness thereof.
Oyo people better surrender Sunday. Or they will see the might of our Commander.
If Yoruba people dare to take up arms to protect themselves; they will see that the government knows how to fish weapons from house to house. The only people allowed to carry guns apart from our security agencies are our elite crème de la crème first citizens.
I hear that some people are claiming that this is an attempt to taint the image of our Jagaban.
First of all, that the Federal Government could allegedly order a massacre at Lekki Toll Gate and there was no falling out between Buhari and Tinubu tells you all you need to know.
Tinubu will not go against Buhari.
If the marauders like, let them go from village to village in the South West, Tinubu will do nothing.
No Nigerian leader has been able to successfully end the bloody trail by these terrorists. This is not orchestrated to hurt Tinubu. This is simply an escalation of an audacity unchecked.
He may belong to nobody and everybody. But we certainly belong his brothers. That is why they march everywhere and also do whatever they like.
Dear Oyo people, I am sorry this is happening to you.
I am even sorrier that there is no solution in sight.
May God help us.
As usual guys,
Mask up.
Sanitize.
Wash your hands.
Avoid large gatherings.
And pray.
COVID 19 is real.
